It was
a fine summer evening. The street was less crowded than earlier in
the afternoon, although there was a continuous stream of waggons,
omnibuses, and cabs both ways. As they stood on the curbstone, a
little way north of Lombard Street, waiting to cross--
'You see, Shargar,' said Robert, 'Nature will have her way. Not all
the hurry and confusion and roar can keep the shadows out. Look:
wherever a space is for a moment vacant, there falls a shadow, as
grotesque, as strange, as full of unutterable things as any shadow
on a field of grass and daisies.'
'I remember feeling the same kind of thing in India,' returned
Shargar, 'where nothing looked as if it belonged to the world I was
born in, but my own shadow. In such a street as this, however, all
the shadows look as if they belonged to another world, and had no
business here.'
'I quite feel that,' returned Falconer. 'They come like angels from
the lovely west and the pure air, to show that London cannot hurt
them, for it too is within the Kingdom of God--to teach the lovers
of nature, like the old orthodox Jew, St. Peter, that they must not
call anything common or unclean.'
Shargar made no reply, and Robert glanced round at him. He was
staring with wide eyes into, not at the crowd of vehicles that
filled the street. His face was pale, and strangely like the
Shargar of old days.
'What's the matter with you?' Robert asked in some bewilderment.
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